Walt Whitman
The first American poet.
Who is Walt Whitman?
• Born: May 31st, 1819 in West Hills, Long Island
• The second of nine children (he has three
brothers named after American leaders [George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson])
• Family has financial difficulty which results in
moving around New York quite a bit
• Begins work after finishing formal schooling at
age eleven
• Whitman is a printer’s apprentice and
occasionally writes filler material for the paper
Who is Walt Whitman?
• After some early work writing articles, editing
and publishing newspapers, and writing
editorials Whitman decides to move into
poetry.
• He is determined to produce an American Epic
and comes up with Leaves of Grass
• Following the publication of his epic in 1855
he is declared America’s first poet
Leaves of Grass
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1855
1856
1860
1867
1872
1876
1881
1892
But why is Whitman the “first
American poet”?
• Whitman is considered
the first American poet
because he breaks from
the traditional style and
form of poetry readers
were accustomed to.
• Despite the Revolution
and the general ill feelings
toward Great Britain, the
most widely read
literature at the time was
still British titles and
authors.
Who loves Walt Whitman?
Ralph Waldo Emerson, in a letter
to Whitman after the first
publication of Leaves of Grass,
had this to say:
“I find [Leaves of Grass] the most
extraordinary piece of with &
wisdom that America has yet
contributed…I greet you at the
beginning of a great career, which
yet must have had a long
foreground somewhere, for such a
start.”
Everybody’s Got An Opinion…
• "...but I confess that I extract no poison from these
Leaves - to me they have brought only healing." Fanny Fern, critic and popular essayist
• "Foul work" filled with "libidinousness." The Christian
Examiner "There are too many persons, who imagine
they demonstrate their superiority to their fellows,
by disregarding all the politenesses and decencies of
life, and, therefore, justify themselves in indulging
the vilest imaginings and shamefullest license." Rufus Griswold, The Criterion
The Father of Free Verse
• Marking a huge break from tradition
and the accepted form of poetry,
Whitman uses the Free Verse (no
formal rhyme scheme, meter, or
musical pattern) form of poetry
throughout Leaves of Grass
• Whitman’s poetry was obviously
different from the work of his
contemporaries in1855
• The next two slides compare a poem
by Robert Browning and Whitman
“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
Came” by Robert Browning, 1855
VI.
While some discuss if near the other graves
Be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and
staves:
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.
“One’s-Self I Sing” by Walt Whitman,
1855
One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the
Muse,
I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
Common Themes
• Transcendent power of love,
brotherhood, and comradeship
• Imaginative projection into
others’ lives
• Optimistic faith in democracy
and equality
• Belief in regenerative and
illustrative powers of nature, its
value as a teacher
(Who does this sound like…?)
“Democratic” Poetry
• The equal representation of all peoples in
literature, men, women, white, black…
• Whitman’s poetry is addressed to and is about
everybody
• He celebrates the diversity of America
Whitman’s Poetic Techniques
• Free verse: lack of metrical
regularity and conventional
rhyme
• Use of repeated images,
symbols, phrases, and
grammatical units
• Use of enumerations and
catalogs
• Contrast and parallelism in
paired lines
Later Life
• Whitman’s later life is devoted equally to his poetry and
public service
• He publishes Leaves of Grass with added sections including
‘Drum Taps’ (which deals with his Civil War nursing
experiences) and later editions include his famous odes to
President Lincoln (‘O Captain My Captain’, ‘When Lilacs Last in
the Doorway Bloom’d’)
• In his later years Whitman works for several government
offices (he is denied one government job because he is the
author of the "objectionable poetry collection" Leaves of
Grass) and spends time as a hospital nurse caring for Civil War
soldiers
Later Life
• He spends a lot of time taking care of
his family members (he commits a
brother, buries another)
• After suffering a paralytic stroke he
‘retires’ and spends his remaining years
in Camden, New Jersey living with his
brother George. The final edition of
Leaves of Grass is referred to as the
‘deathbed’ edition.
• Whitman is buried in a mausoleum
shaped like a house that he designed
himself. He would often visit it during
its construction.
"The great poet of
America so far."
-Andrew Carnegie
• Free Verse Poetry - a form of poetry which
refrains from which refrains from meter
patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern
• Example: “I Hear America Singing” (pg 352 of
your book)
• Found Poetry – poetry created by taking
words, phrases, and sometimes whole
passages from other sources and reframing
them as poetry by making changes in spacing
and/or lines, or by altering the text by
additions and/or deletions
• Example…“Guns & Ammo”
• Concrete Poetry – poetry in which the
typographical arrangement of words is as
important in conveying the intended effect as
the conventional elements of the poem
• Example:
• Limerick – a five line poem in anapestic or
amphibrachic meter with a strict rhyme
scheme (aabba), which intendes to be witty or
humorous, and is sometimes obscene with
humorous intent
Example:
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical,
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
List Poetry
• The writer is telling you something--pointing
something out--saying, "Look at this" or, "Think
about this."
• There's a beginning and an end to it, like in a
story.
• Each item in the list is written the same way.
• They rarely rhyme.
• And it is fun to juxtapose things that seem nonsequential: fruits and meats, nuts and dairy, big
picture to little flower.
• List poems have a layering effect.